Jessica Springsteen clinches her biggest career win in Saint-Tropez
Jessica Springsteen claimed the biggest win of her equestrian career Saturday after riding to victory in the Saint-Tropez leg of the Longines Global Champions Tour (LGCT).

Ashes: England's Jack Leach dismissed as Australia set 399 to win final Test at The Oval
England's Jack Leach is the last man to fall as the hosts set Australia 399 to win the final Test and the series at The Oval.

Former New York Post reporter Ransdell Raphael Pierson died in New York on Wednesday. He was 66. Originally from Alexandria, La., Pierson wrote for The Post from 1983 to 1993, according to his online obituary. Among Pierson’s many claims to fame on the paper were his breaking of the Leona Helmsley tax scandal story. He...

Former NY Post reporter Ransdell Pierson dead at 66
Former New York Post reporter Ransdell Raphael Pierson died in New York on Wednesday. He was 66. Originally from Alexandria, La., Pierson wrote for The Post from 1983 to 1993, according to his online obituary. Among Pierson’s many claims to fame on the paper were his breaking of the Leona Helmsley tax scandal story. He...

A man was in critical but stable condition at Bellevue Hospital early Sunday after a seven-story fall from a roof during a party in Chelsea, sources said. The man, whose name was not immediately released, plummeted off the roof and down a shaft behind 124 West 25th Street at around 11 p.m. The victim was...

Party-goer in critical condition after seven-story fall in Chelsea
A man was in critical but stable condition at Bellevue Hospital early Sunday after a seven-story fall from a roof during a party in Chelsea, sources said. The man, whose name was not immediately released, plummeted off the roof and down a shaft behind 124 West 25th Street at around 11 p.m. The victim was...

Adam Neumann showed he can capitalize on troubled times a decade ago, tapping into demand for workspace by those forced out of jobs in the aftermath of the financial crisis to grow WeWork into a global brand commanding a $47 billion valuation.

WeWork IPO spells rough landing for CEO Neumann
Adam Neumann showed he can capitalize on troubled times a decade ago, tapping into demand for workspace by those forced out of jobs in the aftermath of the financial crisis to grow WeWork into a global brand commanding a $47 billion valuation.

Among the freedoms afforded to Hong Kong citizens after Britain gave up control in 1997 were freedom of speech and of the press. The result was a vibrant publishing industry that has produced a dizzying array of books, journals, newspapers, and magazines addressing every aspect of mainland China’s history, politics, and society. Indeed, without the publishers of Hong Kong, the world would know a lot less about China than it does—and the same is true of the thousands of mainlanders who, until recently, flocked to such popular Hong Kong bookstores as Causeway Bay and the People’s Recreation Community.Today these bookstores are gone, along with nearly all of Hong Kong’s independent publishers. The courageous men and women who struggled to keep them alive have been effectively silenced. This crackdown, along with the many other issues that have brought 2 million protesters into the streets of Hong Kong, reflects the Chinese Communist Party’s aggressive efforts to bring the former British colony into line with President Xi Jinping’s 2017 decree that all forms of media would be consolidated and placed under the direct control of the Central Propaganda Department.The fate of the Hong Kong booksellers has caused an outcry around the world, with independent news outlets and free speech advocates warning of a return to totalitarianism. “It’s an attack on the publishing industry from all aspects,” declared Yaqiu Wang of Human Rights Watch in a recent New York Times article.This outcry is wholly justified. But as a long-time observer of a different medium that has also been losing ground to China’s censors, I have to wonder: Why isn’t there a similar outcry about China’s mounting attack on the film industry, not just in Hong Kong but also in the United States?Over the years, the U.S. government has often praised and defended Hollywood films as a key component of American soft power—that is, as a story-telling medium that can, without engaging in blatant propaganda, convey American ideals, including free expression itself, to foreign populations around the world. But Hollywood has long since abandoned that role. Indeed, not since the end of World War II have the studios cooperated with Washington in furthering the nation’s ideals. Instead, the relationship today is purely commercial—on both sides. For example, Hollywood frequently enlists Washington’s help in fighting piracy and gaining access to foreign markets. But even while providing that help, Washington refrains from asking Hollywood to temper its more negative portrayals of American life, politics, and global intentions. (The exception is the Department of Defense, which insists on approving the script of every film produced with its assistance.)Things are different in China. In that country, which is fast becoming the world’s largest and most important movie market, the ruling Communist Party exercises no such restraint. On the contrary, Beijing has a very clear idea of how a film industry should operate—namely, as an essential part of the effort to bring public opinion in alignment with the party’s ideological worldview. To that end, Beijing has been using Hollywood’s insatiable need for investment, and its vaulting ambition to reach a potential audience of 1.4 billion people, to draw it into China’s orbit.This summer, some industry-watchers objected when the trailer for the forthcoming Top Gun: Maverick—a sequel financed in part by the Chinese firm Tencent—omitted the Japanese and Taiwanese flag from Tom Cruise’s jacket. But over the past 20 years, most news stories about the Hollywood-China relationship—for instance, recent reports about the negative impact of the U.S.-China trade war on Hollywood’s bottom line—have been skewed more toward Hollywood’s active efforts to penetrate the huge Chinese market than to its passive acceptance of China’s increasingly heavy-handed censorship.That censorship is increasing because, in keeping with President Xi’s decree, every film released in China must now be vetted not only by the Central Propaganda Department but also (depending on its subject matter) by the Ministry of State Security, the State Ethnic Affairs Commission, the National Health and Family Planning Commission, the Ministry of Public Security, the State Bureau of Religious Affairs, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and numerous other bureaucratic entities.Hollywood has plenty of experience with censorship. In 1915, before the fledgling studios had even moved to Los Angeles, the U.S. Supreme Court defined the new medium of film to be “a business, pure and simple." That decision exposed movies to government censorship, prompting the industry’s newly formed trade association, then called the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, to create the Production Code that shaped the content of movies from the 1930s until the current age-based system replaced it in the ’60s. Only in 1952 did the high court afford film the protection of the First Amendment.Today, Hollywood is the freest film industry on earth, but only enjoys that freedom fully in the United States. In most other countries, from the United Kingdom to Saudi Arabia, a government body euphemistically called a “film classification board” must approve every film, foreign and domestic, before it can be shown in theaters. Thus, Hollywood has been negotiating with foreign censors for as long as it has been exporting films—about 100 years.Yet for all that time, the compromises made by Hollywood to get films into foreign markets have not been seen as problematic, even by its critics. Historically, the more profitable markets—the ones Hollywood cared about—were in democratic countries, where the film classification boards operated under the rule of law. The changes they demanded, if any, were typically modest. In authoritarian countries, by contrast, the vetting process tended to be corrupt, opaque, and subject to all sorts of hidden political pressures. But because these markets were generally not lucrative, Hollywood rarely bothered with them. As a Hollywood talent agent once remarked to me, “Who cares about North Korea? They don’t buy our movies.”China has broken this mold. Simultaneously the world’s most profitable and censorious market, China has led Hollywood down the path of submission to a state censorship apparatus whose standards are as murky and unpredictable as those of most democratic countries are clear and consistent. In the words of a 2016 guide to film producers aspiring to work in the People’s Republic: “China and its one-party government currently lack … clear guidelines and standards. As such, it’s difficult to know whether or not a proposed project may fall afoul of the censors, whose whimsy seems to be determined in large part by the higher ranks of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)—an organization for which projecting the image of a stable society is considered paramount to preserving its hold on power.”Fundamentally, the two parties to the Hollywood-China relationship have different priorities. To be sure, both are interested in profit. But for China, profit is just one goal. Another, more important concern is to acquire enough Hollywood-style talent and expertise to build a world-class Chinese entertainment industry that can compete successfully with Hollywood at the global box office—and expand Chinese cultural influence around the world.Again, Hollywood has focused far more narrowly on business. And that focus has been reinforced as Hollywood has stubbornly resisted other countries’ efforts to engage in cultural protectionism. It took decades for the U.S. Supreme Court to change the legal status of film from “a business, pure and simple” to cultural expression deserving First Amendment protection. It is therefore ironic that, when faced with foreign governments lobbying the World Trade Organization to curb Hollywood’s dominance of their film markets, the standard American response has been to bluster that film is a commodity like any other, and that to define it as cultural expression is to violate the sacred principle of free trade.In early 2017, Beijing’s strategy of working with Hollywood to enhance China’s cultural influence culminated in the release of the biggest Sino-American co-production ever: a $150 million special-effects extravaganza called The Great Wall, starring Matt Damon and helmed by Zhang Yimou, China’s foremost director. Produced by NBCUniversal and three Chinese partners at a state-of-the-art studio in Qingdao, The Great Wall was the third stage in a process by which Hollywood went from exporting U.S.-made films into China, to co-producing films with China in America, to co-producing films with China in China. At each stage, the American producers received a greater share of the revenue—and submitted to a greater degree of control by the Chinese authorities.If The Great Wall had turned out to be the massive hit everyone was expecting, this process might have continued. But The Great Wall was not a hit. It was a massive flop—in China, America, and everywhere else. Since then, the relationship has been going a bit sour. As China has pulled back from major co-productions with U.S. studios, there has been a migration of individual film professionals, including not just actors but also hundreds of “below-the-line” workers (cinematographers, composers, visual effects supervisors, action coordinators, and the like) into the Chinese film industry—which is to say, into the Chinese propaganda machine.By propaganda, I do not mean lavish epics about sexy female wuxia warriors, or animated features with cute pandas and white-whiskered sages under blossoming plum trees. I mean bloody, ultra-violent action flicks, in which heroic, righteous Chinese soldiers kick some serious ass, including cowardly, decadent American ass, in exotic foreign places that are clearly in need of Xi Jinping Thought.The prime example is Wolf Warrior 2 (2017), a nonstop tsunami of gun battles, massive explosions, wrenching hand-to-hand combat, and a spectacular tank chase, which hammers away at a single message: China is bringing security, prosperity, and modern health care to Africa, while the United States is bringing only misery. The film broke all box-office records in China and is still, at $5.6 billion, its highest-grossing film ever. And while the state media lauded it for beating Hollywood at its own game, they neglected to mention that the action was choreographed by Hollywood veteran Sam Hargrave.Hong Kong has seen a similar migration. Indeed, two other hit films in the same action genre, Operation Mekong (2016) and Operation Red Sea (2018), were directed by Dante Lam, one of several Hong Kong natives who have become cogs in Beijing’s propaganda factory. Described by Jessica Kiang of Variety as “unembarrassed jingoism,” these films drive home the message that Chinese soldiers embody “every virtue of innocence, bravery, fraternity, self-sacrifice, and nobility, while outside China’s borders, all is corruption, cowardliness, depravity, and ineptitude.” These two films are also quite explicitly anti-American, which should be a clue to Hollywood veterans that their interests as Americans are not well aligned with those of Beijing.Some people in Hollywood understand what is happening and would very much like to stop China from chipping away at their industry’s hard-won freedom. But unfortunately, the deep-blue movie colony is deeply averse to doing anything that agrees, or seems to agree, with the political agenda of Donald Trump. Another obstacle is general anxiety, not only about future prospects in China, but also about a shrinking and divided domestic audience that is still, despite everything, Hollywood’s bedrock.Given the stunning technological transformation of the 21st-century landscape, all this talk of threats to films—and books, for that matter—may sound outdated. As movie-going and reading become increasingly marginalized by social media and online streaming, does it really matter that the Chinese Communist Party is squeezing the life out of Hong Kong publishers and American filmmakers? Of course it does, because the same squeezing is being applied to the digital media that were believed, not so long ago, to be a potent force for free expression.In retrospect, it seems clear that Hollywood got something right when it pushed to reclassify its product as an art form worthy of First Amendment protection. By embracing the old “business, pure and simple” mindset, Hollywood has produced a decades-long assembly line of forgettable blockbusters whose titles ought to have been Cash Cow, Cash Cow 2, and Cash Cow: Reloaded. But it has also created films such as 12 Angry Men, On the Waterfront, In the Heat of the Night, and Erin Brockovich, which showed the ability of American citizens and institutions to confront problems and injustices that exist throughout the world. With free expression under threat everywhere today, it is a disgrace that China seems to understand the cultural and geopolitical power of film better than the industry that made these great movies and others like them.

Hollywood’s Great Leap Backward
Among the freedoms afforded to Hong Kong citizens after Britain gave up control in 1997 were freedom of speech and of the press. The result was a vibrant publishing industry that has produced a dizzying array of books, journals, newspapers, and magazines addressing every aspect of mainland China’s history, politics, and society. Indeed, without the publishers of Hong Kong, the world would know a lot less about China than it does—and the same is true of the thousands of mainlanders who, until recently, flocked to such popular Hong Kong bookstores as Causeway Bay and the People’s Recreation Community.Today these bookstores are gone, along with nearly all of Hong Kong’s independent publishers. The courageous men and women who struggled to keep them alive have been effectively silenced. This crackdown, along with the many other issues that have brought 2 million protesters into the streets of Hong Kong, reflects the Chinese Communist Party’s aggressive efforts to bring the former British colony into line with President Xi Jinping’s 2017 decree that all forms of media would be consolidated and placed under the direct control of the Central Propaganda Department.The fate of the Hong Kong booksellers has caused an outcry around the world, with independent news outlets and free speech advocates warning of a return to totalitarianism. “It’s an attack on the publishing industry from all aspects,” declared Yaqiu Wang of Human Rights Watch in a recent New York Times article.This outcry is wholly justified. But as a long-time observer of a different medium that has also been losing ground to China’s censors, I have to wonder: Why isn’t there a similar outcry about China’s mounting attack on the film industry, not just in Hong Kong but also in the United States?Over the years, the U.S. government has often praised and defended Hollywood films as a key component of American soft power—that is, as a story-telling medium that can, without engaging in blatant propaganda, convey American ideals, including free expression itself, to foreign populations around the world. But Hollywood has long since abandoned that role. Indeed, not since the end of World War II have the studios cooperated with Washington in furthering the nation’s ideals. Instead, the relationship today is purely commercial—on both sides. For example, Hollywood frequently enlists Washington’s help in fighting piracy and gaining access to foreign markets. But even while providing that help, Washington refrains from asking Hollywood to temper its more negative portrayals of American life, politics, and global intentions. (The exception is the Department of Defense, which insists on approving the script of every film produced with its assistance.)Things are different in China. In that country, which is fast becoming the world’s largest and most important movie market, the ruling Communist Party exercises no such restraint. On the contrary, Beijing has a very clear idea of how a film industry should operate—namely, as an essential part of the effort to bring public opinion in alignment with the party’s ideological worldview. To that end, Beijing has been using Hollywood’s insatiable need for investment, and its vaulting ambition to reach a potential audience of 1.4 billion people, to draw it into China’s orbit.This summer, some industry-watchers objected when the trailer for the forthcoming Top Gun: Maverick—a sequel financed in part by the Chinese firm Tencent—omitted the Japanese and Taiwanese flag from Tom Cruise’s jacket. But over the past 20 years, most news stories about the Hollywood-China relationship—for instance, recent reports about the negative impact of the U.S.-China trade war on Hollywood’s bottom line—have been skewed more toward Hollywood’s active efforts to penetrate the huge Chinese market than to its passive acceptance of China’s increasingly heavy-handed censorship.That censorship is increasing because, in keeping with President Xi’s decree, every film released in China must now be vetted not only by the Central Propaganda Department but also (depending on its subject matter) by the Ministry of State Security, the State Ethnic Affairs Commission, the National Health and Family Planning Commission, the Ministry of Public Security, the State Bureau of Religious Affairs, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and numerous other bureaucratic entities.Hollywood has plenty of experience with censorship. In 1915, before the fledgling studios had even moved to Los Angeles, the U.S. Supreme Court defined the new medium of film to be “a business, pure and simple." That decision exposed movies to government censorship, prompting the industry’s newly formed trade association, then called the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, to create the Production Code that shaped the content of movies from the 1930s until the current age-based system replaced it in the ’60s. Only in 1952 did the high court afford film the protection of the First Amendment.Today, Hollywood is the freest film industry on earth, but only enjoys that freedom fully in the United States. In most other countries, from the United Kingdom to Saudi Arabia, a government body euphemistically called a “film classification board” must approve every film, foreign and domestic, before it can be shown in theaters. Thus, Hollywood has been negotiating with foreign censors for as long as it has been exporting films—about 100 years.Yet for all that time, the compromises made by Hollywood to get films into foreign markets have not been seen as problematic, even by its critics. Historically, the more profitable markets—the ones Hollywood cared about—were in democratic countries, where the film classification boards operated under the rule of law. The changes they demanded, if any, were typically modest. In authoritarian countries, by contrast, the vetting process tended to be corrupt, opaque, and subject to all sorts of hidden political pressures. But because these markets were generally not lucrative, Hollywood rarely bothered with them. As a Hollywood talent agent once remarked to me, “Who cares about North Korea? They don’t buy our movies.”China has broken this mold. Simultaneously the world’s most profitable and censorious market, China has led Hollywood down the path of submission to a state censorship apparatus whose standards are as murky and unpredictable as those of most democratic countries are clear and consistent. In the words of a 2016 guide to film producers aspiring to work in the People’s Republic: “China and its one-party government currently lack … clear guidelines and standards. As such, it’s difficult to know whether or not a proposed project may fall afoul of the censors, whose whimsy seems to be determined in large part by the higher ranks of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)—an organization for which projecting the image of a stable society is considered paramount to preserving its hold on power.”Fundamentally, the two parties to the Hollywood-China relationship have different priorities. To be sure, both are interested in profit. But for China, profit is just one goal. Another, more important concern is to acquire enough Hollywood-style talent and expertise to build a world-class Chinese entertainment industry that can compete successfully with Hollywood at the global box office—and expand Chinese cultural influence around the world.Again, Hollywood has focused far more narrowly on business. And that focus has been reinforced as Hollywood has stubbornly resisted other countries’ efforts to engage in cultural protectionism. It took decades for the U.S. Supreme Court to change the legal status of film from “a business, pure and simple” to cultural expression deserving First Amendment protection. It is therefore ironic that, when faced with foreign governments lobbying the World Trade Organization to curb Hollywood’s dominance of their film markets, the standard American response has been to bluster that film is a commodity like any other, and that to define it as cultural expression is to violate the sacred principle of free trade.In early 2017, Beijing’s strategy of working with Hollywood to enhance China’s cultural influence culminated in the release of the biggest Sino-American co-production ever: a $150 million special-effects extravaganza called The Great Wall, starring Matt Damon and helmed by Zhang Yimou, China’s foremost director. Produced by NBCUniversal and three Chinese partners at a state-of-the-art studio in Qingdao, The Great Wall was the third stage in a process by which Hollywood went from exporting U.S.-made films into China, to co-producing films with China in America, to co-producing films with China in China. At each stage, the American producers received a greater share of the revenue—and submitted to a greater degree of control by the Chinese authorities.If The Great Wall had turned out to be the massive hit everyone was expecting, this process might have continued. But The Great Wall was not a hit. It was a massive flop—in China, America, and everywhere else. Since then, the relationship has been going a bit sour. As China has pulled back from major co-productions with U.S. studios, there has been a migration of individual film professionals, including not just actors but also hundreds of “below-the-line” workers (cinematographers, composers, visual effects supervisors, action coordinators, and the like) into the Chinese film industry—which is to say, into the Chinese propaganda machine.By propaganda, I do not mean lavish epics about sexy female wuxia warriors, or animated features with cute pandas and white-whiskered sages under blossoming plum trees. I mean bloody, ultra-violent action flicks, in which heroic, righteous Chinese soldiers kick some serious ass, including cowardly, decadent American ass, in exotic foreign places that are clearly in need of Xi Jinping Thought.The prime example is Wolf Warrior 2 (2017), a nonstop tsunami of gun battles, massive explosions, wrenching hand-to-hand combat, and a spectacular tank chase, which hammers away at a single message: China is bringing security, prosperity, and modern health care to Africa, while the United States is bringing only misery. The film broke all box-office records in China and is still, at $5.6 billion, its highest-grossing film ever. And while the state media lauded it for beating Hollywood at its own game, they neglected to mention that the action was choreographed by Hollywood veteran Sam Hargrave.Hong Kong has seen a similar migration. Indeed, two other hit films in the same action genre, Operation Mekong (2016) and Operation Red Sea (2018), were directed by Dante Lam, one of several Hong Kong natives who have become cogs in Beijing’s propaganda factory. Described by Jessica Kiang of Variety as “unembarrassed jingoism,” these films drive home the message that Chinese soldiers embody “every virtue of innocence, bravery, fraternity, self-sacrifice, and nobility, while outside China’s borders, all is corruption, cowardliness, depravity, and ineptitude.” These two films are also quite explicitly anti-American, which should be a clue to Hollywood veterans that their interests as Americans are not well aligned with those of Beijing.Some people in Hollywood understand what is happening and would very much like to stop China from chipping away at their industry’s hard-won freedom. But unfortunately, the deep-blue movie colony is deeply averse to doing anything that agrees, or seems to agree, with the political agenda of Donald Trump. Another obstacle is general anxiety, not only about future prospects in China, but also about a shrinking and divided domestic audience that is still, despite everything, Hollywood’s bedrock.Given the stunning technological transformation of the 21st-century landscape, all this talk of threats to films—and books, for that matter—may sound outdated. As movie-going and reading become increasingly marginalized by social media and online streaming, does it really matter that the Chinese Communist Party is squeezing the life out of Hong Kong publishers and American filmmakers? Of course it does, because the same squeezing is being applied to the digital media that were believed, not so long ago, to be a potent force for free expression.In retrospect, it seems clear that Hollywood got something right when it pushed to reclassify its product as an art form worthy of First Amendment protection. By embracing the old “business, pure and simple” mindset, Hollywood has produced a decades-long assembly line of forgettable blockbusters whose titles ought to have been Cash Cow, Cash Cow 2, and Cash Cow: Reloaded. But it has also created films such as 12 Angry Men, On the Waterfront, In the Heat of the Night, and Erin Brockovich, which showed the ability of American citizens and institutions to confront problems and injustices that exist throughout the world. With free expression under threat everywhere today, it is a disgrace that China seems to understand the cultural and geopolitical power of film better than the industry that made these great movies and others like them.

Vanishing Realms just exited Early Access and released its massive expansion DLC, The Sundered Rift. We had great things to say in our full review and took some time to send a few questions over Kelly Bailey from Indimo Labs on development of a VR role-playing game that spanned across nearly four years. Kelly Bailey has been […]

Vanishing Realms: Crafting a VR RPG as a solo indie dev
Vanishing Realms just exited Early Access and released its massive expansion DLC, The Sundered Rift. We had great things to say in our full review and took some time to send a few questions over Kelly Bailey from Indimo Labs on development of a VR role-playing game that spanned across nearly four years. Kelly Bailey has been […]

Our robot colleague Satoshi Nakaboto writes about Bitcoin every fucking day. Welcome to another edition of Bitcoin Today, where I, Satoshi Nakaboto, tell you what’s been going on with Bitcoin in the past 24 hours. As Nightingale used to say: Peel off the skin of this mystery and eat the tasty fruit inside! Bitcoin Price We closed the day, September 14 2019, at a price of $10,358. That’s a minor 0.12 percent increase in 24 hours, or $12. It was the lowest closing price in two days. We’re still 48 percent below Bitcoin‘s all-time high of $20,089 (December 17 2017).… This story continues at The Next WebOr just read more coverage about: Bitcoin

Satoshi Nakaboto: ‘Bitcoin should be worth $100,000 right now, according to John McAfee’
Our robot colleague Satoshi Nakaboto writes about Bitcoin every fucking day. Welcome to another edition of Bitcoin Today, where I, Satoshi Nakaboto, tell you what’s been going on with Bitcoin in the past 24 hours. As Nightingale used to say: Peel off the skin of this mystery and eat the tasty fruit inside! Bitcoin Price We closed the day, September 14 2019, at a price of $10,358. That’s a minor 0.12 percent increase in 24 hours, or $12. It was the lowest closing price in two days. We’re still 48 percent below Bitcoin‘s all-time high of $20,089 (December 17 2017).… This story continues at The Next WebOr just read more coverage about: Bitcoin

Stephen Barclay and Priti Patel insist focus is on achieving agreement before 31 October Two of Boris Johnson’s senior cabinet ministers have talked up the possibility of securing a Brexit deal through some divergence on the rules in Northern Ireland, as the government’s rhetoric showed fresh signs of shifting ahead of crucial talks next week.With Johnson due to meet Jean-Claude Juncker, the European commission president, on Monday, Stephen Barclay, the Brexit secretary, and the home secretary, Priti Patel, accepted the Irish border was likely to be a key to any potential agreement. Continue reading...

Brexit: UK ministers talk up Irish border compromise as key to deal
Stephen Barclay and Priti Patel insist focus is on achieving agreement before 31 October Two of Boris Johnson’s senior cabinet ministers have talked up the possibility of securing a Brexit deal through some divergence on the rules in Northern Ireland, as the government’s rhetoric showed fresh signs of shifting ahead of crucial talks next week.With Johnson due to meet Jean-Claude Juncker, the European commission president, on Monday, Stephen Barclay, the Brexit secretary, and the home secretary, Priti Patel, accepted the Irish border was likely to be a key to any potential agreement. Continue reading...

Observer Food Monthly joins the influential London restaurant’s founders, Fergus Henderson and Trevor Gulliver, in France on their way to the ‘best bar in the world’• Recipes from the new St John bookOne Friday afternoon early this summer I drove down from Toulouse to a village called Homps, east of Carcassonne, parked in a narrow, cobbled lane in the hot sun and wandered across a shaded square into the cool kitchen of a house beside the Canal du Midi. That afternoon, the house had become an outpost of London’s most distinctive and influential restaurant, St John. The grainy grey light of Smithfield meat market had been swapped for a big Mediterranean sky, but the intense “nose to tail” spirit of the London restaurant prevailed.In the kitchen, Fergus Henderson, St John’s indomitable philosopher-in-chief, was working alongside his Canadian head chef, Steve Darou and a posse of staff and friends, using kitchen scissors to nip the heads and snip the backbones from 120 quail. The quail – set aside to marinate on a layered bed of parsley stalks, sliced garlic and olive oil – would form the centrepiece of the St John’s annual fête du vin the next day. Continue reading...

‘A restaurant should be an old friend’: spreading the gospel of St John
Observer Food Monthly joins the influential London restaurant’s founders, Fergus Henderson and Trevor Gulliver, in France on their way to the ‘best bar in the world’• Recipes from the new St John bookOne Friday afternoon early this summer I drove down from Toulouse to a village called Homps, east of Carcassonne, parked in a narrow, cobbled lane in the hot sun and wandered across a shaded square into the cool kitchen of a house beside the Canal du Midi. That afternoon, the house had become an outpost of London’s most distinctive and influential restaurant, St John. The grainy grey light of Smithfield meat market had been swapped for a big Mediterranean sky, but the intense “nose to tail” spirit of the London restaurant prevailed.In the kitchen, Fergus Henderson, St John’s indomitable philosopher-in-chief, was working alongside his Canadian head chef, Steve Darou and a posse of staff and friends, using kitchen scissors to nip the heads and snip the backbones from 120 quail. The quail – set aside to marinate on a layered bed of parsley stalks, sliced garlic and olive oil – would form the centrepiece of the St John’s annual fête du vin the next day. Continue reading...

With its kingfishers and wild pigs, this Gloucestershire forest is perfect for a family nature safariIt’s a kingfisher!” Ed’s body swung round and leaned forward, his arm following in a wavelike motion the bird soaring above the water at Cannop Ponds in the Forest of Dean. We leaned with him, scanning the sky. “There it is, there it is.” Ed Drewitt, our guide, had spotted its landing perch in a pine around 400 metres away. “Wow, I’d love to be able to do that,” my daughter whispered. Ed got his binoculars out so we could glimpse the orange belly of the bird, the first kingfisher he’d seen this year, he told us excitedly. Ed, a passionate zoologist, was taking us on an “animal safari”, offered to guests staying at the Tudor Farmhouse in the heart of the Forest of Dean. The “safari” is perfect for animal lovers, including my daughter Sophie, 20, studying animal management, and my 16-year-old son, Toby.We’d arrived the afternoon before and, thanks to the hotel’s map of wild swimming spots, headed straight out to the River Usk, half an hour away, sinking into the water from a tiny island beach in the centre of a bend in the river. After a slow journey on clogged motorways, it was a refreshing and magical way to start our forest adventure. Back at the hotel, we enjoyed cocktails in the garden, before stepping across a wooden bridge over a tiny stream that led inside to dinner. I was impressed by the variety on the menu, particularly for someone like me who is gluten and dairy-free, and by the fact that much of it was locally sourced – and tucked into delicately flavoured beetroot and cured salmon, followed by pork belly with roast onion. Continue reading...

We’re going on a boar hunt: into the Forest of Dean
With its kingfishers and wild pigs, this Gloucestershire forest is perfect for a family nature safariIt’s a kingfisher!” Ed’s body swung round and leaned forward, his arm following in a wavelike motion the bird soaring above the water at Cannop Ponds in the Forest of Dean. We leaned with him, scanning the sky. “There it is, there it is.” Ed Drewitt, our guide, had spotted its landing perch in a pine around 400 metres away. “Wow, I’d love to be able to do that,” my daughter whispered. Ed got his binoculars out so we could glimpse the orange belly of the bird, the first kingfisher he’d seen this year, he told us excitedly. Ed, a passionate zoologist, was taking us on an “animal safari”, offered to guests staying at the Tudor Farmhouse in the heart of the Forest of Dean. The “safari” is perfect for animal lovers, including my daughter Sophie, 20, studying animal management, and my 16-year-old son, Toby.We’d arrived the afternoon before and, thanks to the hotel’s map of wild swimming spots, headed straight out to the River Usk, half an hour away, sinking into the water from a tiny island beach in the centre of a bend in the river. After a slow journey on clogged motorways, it was a refreshing and magical way to start our forest adventure. Back at the hotel, we enjoyed cocktails in the garden, before stepping across a wooden bridge over a tiny stream that led inside to dinner. I was impressed by the variety on the menu, particularly for someone like me who is gluten and dairy-free, and by the fact that much of it was locally sourced – and tucked into delicately flavoured beetroot and cured salmon, followed by pork belly with roast onion. Continue reading...

The Supreme Court has been battered in the past three years—by the Merrick Garland blockade, Mitch McConnell’s electoral weaponization of the nomination system, and the Brett Kavanaugh debacle; by President Donald Trump’s pointed attacks on “so-called judges,” on the chief justice of the Supreme Court, and on what he calls, in scare quotes, the “independent judiciary.” It would be odd if that process made no change in how the Court sees itself—all institutions, after all, inevitably evolve over time. Add two new justices who owe their elevation to Trump and the table is set for rapid, unpredictable transformation.What role does the Court have in the Trump era?These musings take on new urgency after the Court’s decision Wednesday to allow the administration to implement its new, restrictive rules for amnesty applications at the southern border. That decision was both premature and unnecessary, and it is part of a troubling pattern of deference to Trump’s wishes.Here’s what I mean. In July, the administration announced new rules that forbid any person crossing the Mexican border to apply for asylum in the United States—unless they have formally requested, and been denied, asylum in Mexico first. Obviously, this rule does not apply to Mexican nationals seeking protection from their own government; but everyone else—Central Americans or refugees from elsewhere in the world—must first apply in Mexico and await a decision. This will have an immediate and sharp impact on asylum applicants who arrive at the border and find the rules have changed since they set out.Such a rule might or might not be a good idea; but it seems to conflict with the Immigration and Nationality Act, which provides that “any alien who is physically present in the United States or who arrives in the United States … may apply for asylum,” and makes an exception only for “aliens … firmly resettled in”—not just passing through—“another country” before arrival. Federal District Judge Jon S. Tigar enjoined the policy across the country, concluding that it probably violated the statute, that the Department of Homeland Security had probably violated required procedures in adopting it, and that the decision to impose it flew squarely in the face of the record evidence and thus was probably “arbitrary and capricious.” This was only interim relief; Tigar set the case for trial. The Ninth Circuit then reviewed his nationwide injunction and modified it, meaning Tigar’s order would apply only to border areas in the Ninth Circuit—California and Nevada.The appellate court then—as is routine—sent the case back to Tigar’s court for gathering of evidence. After another hearing, Tigar concluded that the immigrant-aid organizations who are plaintiffs had demonstrated they would suffer immediate injury if the policy were not stayed across the entire border. On September 9, he reinstated the nationwide injunction.The government then did something that until recently was unusual: It immediately asked the Supreme Court to lift the injunction before the Ninth Circuit could hear a new appeal.The Court granted that request last week, allowing the new policy to go into effect everywhere. While the appeal winds its way up, asylum seekers will be barred if they have passed through Mexico. And the Court has given a broad hint about how it will decide the issue when it comes up again. Until recently, such “emergency” action—proceedings in which the Supreme Court reaches down to abort or alter ongoing litigation—was pretty unusual. Now, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in a dissent to the asylum order, “it appears as if the mechanism is a new normal. Historically, the Government has made this kind of request rarely; now it does so reflexively.”To buttress her point, Sotomayor cited a new study by the University of Texas law professor Stephen Vladeck called “The Solicitor General and the Shadow Docket,” which will be published in the Harvard Law Review this fall. (A preliminary version is available here.) Vladeck, who is not only an acute Court watcher but a sometime advocate, suggests that the Court’s treatment of the government’s “emergency” motions has changed since Trump became president.These motions take three forms: Applications for an “emergency stay” of a lower court’s order, bypassing the normal appeals process; petitions for “cert. before judgment,” which bypass the lower courts and move the case directly to the high court’s docket; and petitions for a “writ of mandamus,” which would order a lower court to do something it has refused to do. Vladeck went through the past two decades of order lists; his findings are striking.Under George W. Bush, the government in eight years asked for stays only five times; for “cert. before judgment” once; for mandamus, not at all. Under Barack Obama, the government in eight years petitioned for stays three times; “cert. before judgment” three times; and mandamus not at all. Under Trump, in less than three years, the government has asked for stays 21 times; “cert. before judgment” nine times; and mandamus three times. The Trump administration seems to regard “extraordinary relief” from the high court as nothing more than its due. While the Court has not granted relief each time it has been sought, the government has gotten much of what it wants in high-profile cases such as the “travel ban,” the transgender military service ban, and the asylum rule. And, as Vladeck pointed out, until last week no one on the Court had even suggested that the government was abusing these procedures.Sotomayor’s dissent breaks the silence. But the majority, and in particular Chief Justice John Roberts, have stayed mum, suggesting to Vladeck that the Court has shifted its view of emergency motions. “That silence,” Vladeck told me in an interview, “is certainly resonating in the Solicitor General’s office”—meaning that the government may now feel secure in asking the high court to rein in judges below.One common response to Vladeck’s statistics is that the Court’s aggressiveness has been spurred by an increase in so-called nationwide injunctions issued by district judges. “That’s way too easy,” Vladeck said. Although there has been an increase in such injunctions (it began in the Obama years), many emergency stays have been issued in cases where no nationwide injunction is at stake, or in more or less routine disputes over “discovery,” the information the government must provide when it is sued. To Vladeck, the real change is that the new conservative majority is willing to in essence decide the cases before they are briefed or argued—to predict that the government will win when the case finally reaches them, and thus should have its way in the interim.In the article, Vladeck points out that one of the factors a court must decide is whether either party will suffer “irreparable injury”—either because an injunction is granted, harming the defendants, or denied, harming the plaintiffs. Thus, in a suit against the government, courts must balance the damage to the government caused by the delay of a possibly lawful policy against the harm to plaintiffs caused by being subjected to a possibly unlawful action. Under Trump, the government seems to be suffering all the harm. Vladeck argued that the Court should explain this shift. “If what’s going on in these cases is that the majority is no longer interested in considering the harm that these policies are—or could be—inflicting while they are in force, it would behoove them to say so,” he told me.The government’s use of these procedures smacks of entitlement, of a sense that Republicans went to great trouble to tilt the Court in their favor and should now reap their reward. Similarly, some conservatives have muttered that lower courts are wandering out of their lanes, with one Trump defender attacking anti-administration rulings as “the judicial resistance.” Indeed, in a surly dissent in the census case last June, Justice Clarence Thomas branded District Judge Jesse Furman, who had ruled against the government at trial, “a judge predisposed to distrust” the administration. Thomas also claimed Furman had “create[d] an eye-catching conspiracy web” out of unrelated facts. As judicial conduct used to be measured, it was a shocking breach of protocol. Yet Thomas’s opinion was joined by Trump’s two appointees, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh.Which brings us back to my initial question. What is the Supreme Court today, in 2019? I fear it has taken on the role of enforcing Trump’s will against fellow judges.

The Supreme Court Is Trump’s Enforcer
The Supreme Court has been battered in the past three years—by the Merrick Garland blockade, Mitch McConnell’s electoral weaponization of the nomination system, and the Brett Kavanaugh debacle; by President Donald Trump’s pointed attacks on “so-called judges,” on the chief justice of the Supreme Court, and on what he calls, in scare quotes, the “independent judiciary.” It would be odd if that process made no change in how the Court sees itself—all institutions, after all, inevitably evolve over time. Add two new justices who owe their elevation to Trump and the table is set for rapid, unpredictable transformation.What role does the Court have in the Trump era?These musings take on new urgency after the Court’s decision Wednesday to allow the administration to implement its new, restrictive rules for amnesty applications at the southern border. That decision was both premature and unnecessary, and it is part of a troubling pattern of deference to Trump’s wishes.Here’s what I mean. In July, the administration announced new rules that forbid any person crossing the Mexican border to apply for asylum in the United States—unless they have formally requested, and been denied, asylum in Mexico first. Obviously, this rule does not apply to Mexican nationals seeking protection from their own government; but everyone else—Central Americans or refugees from elsewhere in the world—must first apply in Mexico and await a decision. This will have an immediate and sharp impact on asylum applicants who arrive at the border and find the rules have changed since they set out.Such a rule might or might not be a good idea; but it seems to conflict with the Immigration and Nationality Act, which provides that “any alien who is physically present in the United States or who arrives in the United States … may apply for asylum,” and makes an exception only for “aliens … firmly resettled in”—not just passing through—“another country” before arrival. Federal District Judge Jon S. Tigar enjoined the policy across the country, concluding that it probably violated the statute, that the Department of Homeland Security had probably violated required procedures in adopting it, and that the decision to impose it flew squarely in the face of the record evidence and thus was probably “arbitrary and capricious.” This was only interim relief; Tigar set the case for trial. The Ninth Circuit then reviewed his nationwide injunction and modified it, meaning Tigar’s order would apply only to border areas in the Ninth Circuit—California and Nevada.The appellate court then—as is routine—sent the case back to Tigar’s court for gathering of evidence. After another hearing, Tigar concluded that the immigrant-aid organizations who are plaintiffs had demonstrated they would suffer immediate injury if the policy were not stayed across the entire border. On September 9, he reinstated the nationwide injunction.The government then did something that until recently was unusual: It immediately asked the Supreme Court to lift the injunction before the Ninth Circuit could hear a new appeal.The Court granted that request last week, allowing the new policy to go into effect everywhere. While the appeal winds its way up, asylum seekers will be barred if they have passed through Mexico. And the Court has given a broad hint about how it will decide the issue when it comes up again. Until recently, such “emergency” action—proceedings in which the Supreme Court reaches down to abort or alter ongoing litigation—was pretty unusual. Now, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in a dissent to the asylum order, “it appears as if the mechanism is a new normal. Historically, the Government has made this kind of request rarely; now it does so reflexively.”To buttress her point, Sotomayor cited a new study by the University of Texas law professor Stephen Vladeck called “The Solicitor General and the Shadow Docket,” which will be published in the Harvard Law Review this fall. (A preliminary version is available here.) Vladeck, who is not only an acute Court watcher but a sometime advocate, suggests that the Court’s treatment of the government’s “emergency” motions has changed since Trump became president.These motions take three forms: Applications for an “emergency stay” of a lower court’s order, bypassing the normal appeals process; petitions for “cert. before judgment,” which bypass the lower courts and move the case directly to the high court’s docket; and petitions for a “writ of mandamus,” which would order a lower court to do something it has refused to do. Vladeck went through the past two decades of order lists; his findings are striking.Under George W. Bush, the government in eight years asked for stays only five times; for “cert. before judgment” once; for mandamus, not at all. Under Barack Obama, the government in eight years petitioned for stays three times; “cert. before judgment” three times; and mandamus not at all. Under Trump, in less than three years, the government has asked for stays 21 times; “cert. before judgment” nine times; and mandamus three times. The Trump administration seems to regard “extraordinary relief” from the high court as nothing more than its due. While the Court has not granted relief each time it has been sought, the government has gotten much of what it wants in high-profile cases such as the “travel ban,” the transgender military service ban, and the asylum rule. And, as Vladeck pointed out, until last week no one on the Court had even suggested that the government was abusing these procedures.Sotomayor’s dissent breaks the silence. But the majority, and in particular Chief Justice John Roberts, have stayed mum, suggesting to Vladeck that the Court has shifted its view of emergency motions. “That silence,” Vladeck told me in an interview, “is certainly resonating in the Solicitor General’s office”—meaning that the government may now feel secure in asking the high court to rein in judges below.One common response to Vladeck’s statistics is that the Court’s aggressiveness has been spurred by an increase in so-called nationwide injunctions issued by district judges. “That’s way too easy,” Vladeck said. Although there has been an increase in such injunctions (it began in the Obama years), many emergency stays have been issued in cases where no nationwide injunction is at stake, or in more or less routine disputes over “discovery,” the information the government must provide when it is sued. To Vladeck, the real change is that the new conservative majority is willing to in essence decide the cases before they are briefed or argued—to predict that the government will win when the case finally reaches them, and thus should have its way in the interim.In the article, Vladeck points out that one of the factors a court must decide is whether either party will suffer “irreparable injury”—either because an injunction is granted, harming the defendants, or denied, harming the plaintiffs. Thus, in a suit against the government, courts must balance the damage to the government caused by the delay of a possibly lawful policy against the harm to plaintiffs caused by being subjected to a possibly unlawful action. Under Trump, the government seems to be suffering all the harm. Vladeck argued that the Court should explain this shift. “If what’s going on in these cases is that the majority is no longer interested in considering the harm that these policies are—or could be—inflicting while they are in force, it would behoove them to say so,” he told me.The government’s use of these procedures smacks of entitlement, of a sense that Republicans went to great trouble to tilt the Court in their favor and should now reap their reward. Similarly, some conservatives have muttered that lower courts are wandering out of their lanes, with one Trump defender attacking anti-administration rulings as “the judicial resistance.” Indeed, in a surly dissent in the census case last June, Justice Clarence Thomas branded District Judge Jesse Furman, who had ruled against the government at trial, “a judge predisposed to distrust” the administration. Thomas also claimed Furman had “create[d] an eye-catching conspiracy web” out of unrelated facts. As judicial conduct used to be measured, it was a shocking breach of protocol. Yet Thomas’s opinion was joined by Trump’s two appointees, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh.Which brings us back to my initial question. What is the Supreme Court today, in 2019? I fear it has taken on the role of enforcing Trump’s will against fellow judges.

Republicans shouldn't have to worry about a Senate race in Kansas. But with the looming retirement of veteran Republican Sen. Pat Roberts, Kansas has suddenly become a cause for concern within the GOP establishment. The reason- Kris Kobach.

Facing divisive Kansas Senate race, Republicans pine for Pompeo
Republicans shouldn't have to worry about a Senate race in Kansas. But with the looming retirement of veteran Republican Sen. Pat Roberts, Kansas has suddenly become a cause for concern within the GOP establishment. The reason- Kris Kobach.

How Should I Face Racism Among My Childhood Friends?
“It might help to turn to art that speaks to an experience we almost all share as members of a nation of immigrants,” writes one of our new advice columnists.

Homeless Residents Got One-Way Tickets Out of Town. Many Returned to the Streets.
As cities offer transportation passes to get homeless people to a more stable destination, some worry whether they are sending people to insecurity in a new place.

Transgender Woman Found Burned Beyond Recognition in Florida, Officials Say
Bee Love Slater was the 18th transgender person known to have been killed in the United States this year, according to the Human Rights Campaign.

‘People Actively Hate Us’: Inside the Border Patrol’s Morale Crisis
Overwhelmed by desperate migrants and criticized for mistreating the people in their care, many agents have grown defensive, insular and bitter.

Saudi, Gulf stocks fall after attacks on Aramco oil plants
Saudi stocks fell sharply on Sunday, after attacks on two plants at the heart of the kingdom's oil industry a day earlier knocked out more than half of Saudi crude output.

Iran Rejects U.S. Accusation It Is Responsible for Saudi Attacks
Houthi rebels in Yemen said they carried out drone strikes on Saudi oil facilities. An Iranian official dismissed allegations of Tehran’s involvement as “maximum lies.”

Hong Kong police fire teargas and water cannon as protesters throw petrol bombs
Thousands of Hong Kong protesters have returned to the streets marking the 15th consecutive weekend of mass demonstrations. Follow here for the latest.

Defiant Iran blasts Pompeo’s Saudi-attack accusations as ‘blind and futile comments’
An Iranian official responded Sunday after U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo pointed at the nation’s government in Tehran following Saturday’s drone attacks on Saudi oil facilities.

Hong Kong police fired water cannon and volleys of tear gas to break up protesters throwing petrol bombs and bricks near the Legislative Council building and central government offices on Sunday, the latest in weeks of sometimes violent unrest.

Hong Kong police fire tear gas, water cannon at petrol-bomb throwing protesters
Hong Kong police fired water cannon and volleys of tear gas to break up protesters throwing petrol bombs and bricks near the Legislative Council building and central government offices on Sunday, the latest in weeks of sometimes violent unrest.

Iran's Zarif says U.S., allies are "stuck in Yemen"
Iran's foreign minister Mohammed Javad Zarif said on Sunday that the United States and its allies were "stuck in Yemen" and that blaming Tehran "won't end the disaster".

Hundreds of Hong Kong protesters waving Union Jack flags marched and sang "God Save the Queen", both on the streets and outside the British Consulate on Sunday, demanding that the former colonial power ensures China honors its commitments to the city's freedoms. Rough cut (no reporter narration).

Hong Kong protesters march and sing in plea to Britain
Hundreds of Hong Kong protesters waving Union Jack flags marched and sang "God Save the Queen", both on the streets and outside the British Consulate on Sunday, demanding that the former colonial power ensures China honors its commitments to the city's freedoms. Rough cut (no reporter narration).

An IPCC report says two-thirds of glaciers on the largest ice sheet after the Arctic and Antarctic are set to disappear in 80 yearsMany moons ago in Tibet, the Second Buddha transformed a fierce nyen (a malevolent mountain demon) into a neri (the holiest protective warrior god) called Khawa Karpo, who took up residence in the sacred mountain bearing his name. Khawa Karpo is the tallest of the Meili mountain range, piercing the sky at 6,740 metres (22,112ft) above sea level. Local Tibetan communities believe that conquering Khawa Karpo is an act of sacrilege and would cause the deity to abandon his mountain home. Nevertheless, there have been several failed attempts by outsiders – the best known by an international team of 17, all of whom died in an avalanche during their ascent on 3 January 1991. After much local petitioning, in 2001 Beijing passed a law banning mountaineering there.However, Khawa Karpo continues to be affronted more insidiously. Over the past two decades, the Mingyong glacier at the foot of the mountain has dramatically receded. Villagers blame disrespectful human behaviour, including an inadequacy of prayer, greater material greed and an increase in pollution from tourism. People have started to avoid eating garlic and onions, burning meat, breaking vows or fighting for fear of unleashing the wrath of the deity. Mingyong is one of the world’s fastest shrinking glaciers, but locals cannot believe it will die because their own existence is intertwined with it. Yet its disappearance is almost inevitable. Continue reading...

The world has a third pole – and it's melting quickly
An IPCC report says two-thirds of glaciers on the largest ice sheet after the Arctic and Antarctic are set to disappear in 80 yearsMany moons ago in Tibet, the Second Buddha transformed a fierce nyen (a malevolent mountain demon) into a neri (the holiest protective warrior god) called Khawa Karpo, who took up residence in the sacred mountain bearing his name. Khawa Karpo is the tallest of the Meili mountain range, piercing the sky at 6,740 metres (22,112ft) above sea level. Local Tibetan communities believe that conquering Khawa Karpo is an act of sacrilege and would cause the deity to abandon his mountain home. Nevertheless, there have been several failed attempts by outsiders – the best known by an international team of 17, all of whom died in an avalanche during their ascent on 3 January 1991. After much local petitioning, in 2001 Beijing passed a law banning mountaineering there.However, Khawa Karpo continues to be affronted more insidiously. Over the past two decades, the Mingyong glacier at the foot of the mountain has dramatically receded. Villagers blame disrespectful human behaviour, including an inadequacy of prayer, greater material greed and an increase in pollution from tourism. People have started to avoid eating garlic and onions, burning meat, breaking vows or fighting for fear of unleashing the wrath of the deity. Mingyong is one of the world’s fastest shrinking glaciers, but locals cannot believe it will die because their own existence is intertwined with it. Yet its disappearance is almost inevitable. Continue reading...

The Northern Ireland party whose 10 members of parliament support British Prime Minister Boris Johnson's government believe a deal can be done in the coming weeks to maintain an open border in Ireland, a senior member said on Sunday.

Northern Ireland's DUP says still time for Brexit border deal
The Northern Ireland party whose 10 members of parliament support British Prime Minister Boris Johnson's government believe a deal can be done in the coming weeks to maintain an open border in Ireland, a senior member said on Sunday.

Hong Kong police fire tear gas to break up protesters
Hong Kong police fired tear gas to break up protesters at Admiralty on Sunday, near the headquarters of the People's Liberation Army in the Chinese-ruled city.

Jubilee Hall, AldeburghEve Austin is vividly volatile as a schoolgirl adrift over summer holidays in Sophie Ellerby’s slow-burning drama for HighTideYear 9 is said to be the toughest for schoolchildren. The looming GCSE workload hasn’t yet fixed their focus, bodies seem to change by the day, emotions explode and a no man’s land opens up between childhood and adulthood. Sophie Ellerby’s slow-burning debut play, Lit, mostly unfolds over the summer holidays bridging years 9 and 10 in a Nottingham secondary. These are weeks that may be spent reading Harry Potter at home, as the sheltered Ruth does, or partying in a field off the A52 with an older boy, which is where Ruth’s unlikely new friend Bex finds herself.Bex Bentley (“Like the car – proper classy”) can light up a room with her smile and her filthy wit, which is frequently deployed in raging retorts to her beleaguered foster mum, Sylvia. Bex, like Ellerby’s play, can be both as fizzy and sour as the Tangfastic sweets she demands from Dillon, her new boyfriend, before she’ll take her top off. Continue reading...

Lit review – a blistering look at teenage trauma
Jubilee Hall, AldeburghEve Austin is vividly volatile as a schoolgirl adrift over summer holidays in Sophie Ellerby’s slow-burning drama for HighTideYear 9 is said to be the toughest for schoolchildren. The looming GCSE workload hasn’t yet fixed their focus, bodies seem to change by the day, emotions explode and a no man’s land opens up between childhood and adulthood. Sophie Ellerby’s slow-burning debut play, Lit, mostly unfolds over the summer holidays bridging years 9 and 10 in a Nottingham secondary. These are weeks that may be spent reading Harry Potter at home, as the sheltered Ruth does, or partying in a field off the A52 with an older boy, which is where Ruth’s unlikely new friend Bex finds herself.Bex Bentley (“Like the car – proper classy”) can light up a room with her smile and her filthy wit, which is frequently deployed in raging retorts to her beleaguered foster mum, Sylvia. Bex, like Ellerby’s play, can be both as fizzy and sour as the Tangfastic sweets she demands from Dillon, her new boyfriend, before she’ll take her top off. Continue reading...

Only four countries have won the FIBA World Cup multiple times. That could change on Sunday. Spain will look to win the gold medals at the tournament for the second time when it takes on Argentina in the championship game of the 2019 World Cup...

FIBA World Cup Final 2019: Live Stream Schedule for Argentina vs. Spain
Only four countries have won the FIBA World Cup multiple times. That could change on Sunday. Spain will look to win the gold medals at the tournament for the second time when it takes on Argentina in the championship game of the 2019 World Cup...

Updates from the fourth day of play at the OvalAny thoughts? Email or tweet @JPHowcroft 10.10am BST Want to know the match situation at the click of a mouse/button/screen/trackpad? Well, fear not, because Vic Marks is all you need.The lead stands at 382 with two fragile wickets remaining. It should be enough for England – if they can get Smith out. 9.49am BST Hello everybody and welcome to live OBO coverage of day four of the fifth Ashes Test from the Oval. It’s coming home, it’s coming home, it’s coming! What? Speak up a bit. It isn’t!? A shared series means Australia retain the Ashes? Oh well... Continue reading...

Ashes 2019: England v Australia, fifth Test day four – live!
Updates from the fourth day of play at the OvalAny thoughts? Email or tweet @JPHowcroft 10.10am BST Want to know the match situation at the click of a mouse/button/screen/trackpad? Well, fear not, because Vic Marks is all you need.The lead stands at 382 with two fragile wickets remaining. It should be enough for England – if they can get Smith out. 9.49am BST Hello everybody and welcome to live OBO coverage of day four of the fifth Ashes Test from the Oval. It’s coming home, it’s coming home, it’s coming! What? Speak up a bit. It isn’t!? A shared series means Australia retain the Ashes? Oh well... Continue reading...

Britain's Liberal Democrats party leader Jo Swinson said on Sunday there was no Brexit deal that her party would vote for in parliament, saying her priority was to stop Britain leaving the European Union.

UK Liberal Democrat leader says her party will not support any Brexit deal
Britain's Liberal Democrats party leader Jo Swinson said on Sunday there was no Brexit deal that her party would vote for in parliament, saying her priority was to stop Britain leaving the European Union.

Iraq denies its territory was used to launch attack on Saudi oil facilities - statement
Iraq denied on Sunday that its territory had been used to carry out attacks on oil facilities in Saudi Arabia, referring to an incident that knocked out more that half the Kingdom's output.